A laundry treating appliance is a common household device for treating laundry in accordance with a preprogrammed treating cycle of operation. A subset of laundry treating appliances use a generally horizontally rotating drum to define a chamber in which the laundry is received for treatment according to the cycle of operation. The drum may be controlled to rotate at a predetermined speed in a predetermined direction as required by the cycle. Some laundry treating appliances may reverse and/or oscillate the direction of rotation in accordance with the preprogrammed cycle. The rotation of the drum may be used to impart mechanical action to the laundry, which may be attributable to the lifting and falling of the laundry as the drum is rotated and/or the relative sliding of individual laundry items.
The mechanical action associated with the horizontally rotating drum is relatively low compared to other types of laundry appliances, especially laundry machines with a drum that rotates about a vertical axis. Given that thermal action, chemical action, and mechanical action are the three primary sources of cleaning action in a laundry treating appliance, a laundry treating appliance with a relatively low mechanical action, like a horizontal axis appliance, will need to have greater thermal action and/or chemical action to obtain the same degree of cleaning as compared to a laundry treating appliance with a greater mechanical energy, like a vertical axis appliance.